← Dead Certain: The Martha Moxley Murder
Dead Certain: The Martha Moxley Murder
Family Ties
01:12:13
Skakel reconnects with his Kennedy cousins, but when scandal erupts, the reunion collapses. A memoir recorded for self-protection becomes a liability.
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- [00:00]
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- [01:04]
Andrew Goldman
October 15, 2024 Columbia Presbyterian Hospital in Upper Manhattan. Hey, I'm here to see somebody in cardiac. Michael Skakel. S K A K E L got skle back there.
- [01:24]
Justworks Narrator
Sorry?
- [01:25]
Andrew Goldman
Skle back there. Michael.
- [01:26]
Justworks Narrator
Yes, yes, I'm with physical therapy. We're just working with each other, but.
- [01:29]
Andrew Goldman
Oh, oh, I don't want to. No, you couldn't. You couldn't even come with us. No problem.
- [01:33]
Michael Skakel
Me, Andrew. I literally just pulled poses out of my chest and two out of them, you know, right next to my heart.
- [01:44]
Andrew Goldman
You're alive. She pressed miracle.
- [01:47]
Michael Skakel's Voice / Narration
Boom.
- [01:49]
Andrew Goldman
I was kind of worried about you.
- [01:50]
Michael Skakel
Yeah, with good reason.
- [01:52]
Andrew Goldman
Yeah, this isn't hyperbole. I was truly worried about him for about a week there. This was pretty close to becoming a podcast in which you'd hear the life story of and the murder allegations against a recently dead guy. For much of 2024, Michael had been complaining of feeling lousy, tired and winded after not very strenuous activities. When he got in to see a cardiologist, the doctor was alarmed at the extent of plaque blockage in his arteries. He was immediately scheduled for an emergency triple bypass and an aortic valve replacement. Steven Skakel kept me apprised and put a decent spin on the news. But it hit home over almost four decades before he died At 83, my father had a quintuple bypass and countless subsequent heart attacks and artery clearing procedures. Many times he seemed to be on death's door. Every few years, I traveled up to Portland to offer Pre op last goodbyes to him at Maine Med. But he'd never been out so long. During and after an operation, about eight hours under the knife and on a ventilator for three days after that. I tried to be optimistic when talking to Steven, but privately I felt like Michael's chances of ever waking up were about 50. 50. Michael doesn't trust many people. He feels that he's been raked over the coals in the press more times than I can count. But perhaps because of my work on Bobby Kennedy's book and the time I've dedicated to covering this story since he's decided to confide in me while he was dangling between life and death, I re listened to a couple of his voicemails he'd left me over the years, including this one from 2023.
- [03:28]
Michael Skakel's Voice / Narration
It's just before 3 on Wednesday, May 3rd. Just. I don't know, just needed to hear your voice because it brings me peace. And knowing that, you know, you hold the torch of truth where no one else wants to. I'm profoundly grateful for what you do. Thanks, Andrew. Peace. Bye.
- [03:53]
Andrew Goldman
As a journalist, being called the torchbearer of truth makes me squirm a little. That's a lot of pressure for one guy with a microphone and a notebook. I've known Michael and Steven for years now. We've texted each other stupid dad jokes and hit some major impediments to getting this story out and had more than a few temper flares and sulks that threatened to derail the whole project. But at the end of the day, the journalist in me has one job, to be nosy. To follow the story wherever it leads, no matter how uncomfortable that might get. I was relieved when Michael pulled through. As I sat with him in the hospital room, our conversation drifted to one of Michael's favorite, or maybe least favorite topics. The Kennedys. In one of the several days Michael was out of it, his last surviving aunt, Ethel Skakel Kennedy, had passed away at 96. I asked if he'd heard.
- [04:46]
Michael Skakel
No, I didn't know that.
- [04:47]
Andrew Goldman
Steven didn't really have much nice to say about her.
- [04:51]
Michael Skakel
But Stephen also didn't have the relationship I had with her. She was literally like my mom.
- [04:58]
Andrew Goldman
Was she?
- [04:58]
Michael Skakel
At what point?
- [05:03]
Andrew Goldman
I don't know.
- [05:03]
Michael Skakel
When I got sober.
- [05:05]
Michael Skakel's Voice / Narration
Really?
- [05:06]
Michael Skakel
Yeah, I think when I helped David, we hit it off.
- [05:12]
Andrew Goldman
That's David Kennedy, one of Ethel's seven sons. We'll be coming back to him in a moment. But it surprised me to hear Michael's reaction to the news of Ethel's death. Do you remember that legal pad I mentioned Michael brought along to one of our interviews, the one with the headline culprits atop a list of names of folks he feels are responsible for his conviction? Trial attorney Mickey Sherman's name was on that list. But if we're talking sheer volume, one name comes up more than any other Kennedy. I'm Andrew Goldman from NBC News studios and highly replaceable productions. This is dead certain. The Martha Moxley murder. The Skakels and Kennedys have a complicated relationship, one I still struggle to fully wrap my head around. We're talking a generation of family lore involving snubs, scandals and a rivalry that's the stuff of legend. In our conversations over the years, Michael has described the relationship as akin to the infamous Hatfield McCoy feud. As we'll get into shortly, Michael has many thoughts on this topic, and a lot of his feelings about his Kennedy cousins and their actions are filtered through this lens of antagonism.
- [06:37]
Michael Skakel's Voice / Narration
I'm not a Kennedy.
- [06:38]
Michael Skakel
I'm a Skakel through and through.
- [06:41]
Andrew Goldman
Michael's been through a lot. For much of his life, he says he's lived through a worst case scenario of circumstances. Family tragedies, physical and emotional abuse both at home and at school, and a conviction for a murder he says he didn't do. It's easy to understand how these experiences might have changed his worldview. I imagine that culprits list was probably first drafted, at least mentally, during the 11 and a half years he spent behind bars. Plenty of time for many of his personal theories to harden into rock solid facts in his own mind. We're going to delve into some of those theories in a moment, but before we do, I wanted to do a quick history lesson on the Kennedy Skakel feud as documented in the media and biographies. Michael may frame it in terms of Hatfields and McCoys, but I think of it more like Shakespeare. Two houses, both alike in wealth and standing, with 20th century New England summing for Renaissance Verona. Here's how Bobby Kennedy Jr described it in a Dateline interview from 2016.
- [07:45]
Ryan Reynolds
They were similar in that they were both Irish Catholic. They were both very wealthy and spent a lot of time doing wilderness stuff. But after that, the similarities ended. They were opposed politically from the outset.
- [08:04]
Andrew Goldman
The Skakels were right wing Republicans whose money came from oil and coal. The Kennedys were Democrats, their fortune amassed by Joseph P. Kennedy Sr. Through a mix of finance, shipping, Hollywood studios and liquor distribution. The two families were miles apart on the political spectrum. So they did what's always guaranteed to improve relations. They intermarried The Skakel family couldn't have been thrilled when Ethel Skakel, Michael Skakel's aunt, went to the dark side and married into the Kennedy clan. And there are in fact, snippy tales about the run up to ethel and Bobby's 1950 wedding spats, about where each family would bunk and heads butted between the strong willed matriarchs of their respective clans. Ethel's biographer, Jerry Oppenheimer paints a portrait of Ethel as being stuck between two worlds. The unrestrained chaos of the Skakels on one side and the carefully choreographed expectations of the Kennedys on the other. But it seems pretty clear on which side she landed. As soon as the newly married Mr. And Mrs. Robert F. Kennedy jetted off for their Honolulu honeymoon, Ethel shook the Connecticut dust from her feet and wholly embraced being a Kennedy. She was a perfect political wife who seemed more than happy to leave Greenwich and her loutish siblings back in the Nutmeg state. More Kennedy than the Kennedys was how she was known within her new family. Being embraced so completely by the political clan members made Ethel swell with pride and likely rankled all the Skakels she'd left behind. The death of Ethel's parents, George and Big Ann skakel, in a 1955 plane crash seems to have further frayed the fragile ties between the two families. And according to Oppenheimer's sources, Ethel and Bobby made only a brief appearance at the funeral and seemed to continue on with their lives, unaffected, enraging Ethel's Skakel kin. The personal and political animosities kept compounding. When Ethel became a pivotal player in JFK's 1960 election campaign, a number of the Skakels threw their support behind his Republican opponent, Richard Nixon. Stories, many of which I suspect to be based in truth, but honed by age and exaggerated for effect, have become part of both families lore as evidence of the ongoing feud. A disproportionate number of them involved the hijinks of Ethel's older brother, George Jr. The family's resident charmer, troublemaker and unapologetic party animal. It was George who, as the story goes, skipped JFK's presidential swearing in ceremony and handed his ticket off to a stranger, then further ticked off the Kennedys by trying to make out with actress Kim Novak at the inauguration party. What might have begun as barbed but harmless ribbing between families turned into something uglier. Per his sources, Oppenheimer writes, upon hearing that George Jr. And his wife Pat had been in a drunk driving accident with their children in the car. Bobby turned to Ethel and said, watch. They'll all kill themselves, and then we won't have to worry about any of them anymore. Even RFK's 1968 assassination didn't seem to precipitate an inter familiar thaw publicly. Ethel was now a widow of Camelot. She saw her 11 children as Kennedys through and through. But when some of them got into trouble, which they did a lot, Teddy, who as the sole surviving Kennedy uncle was called on to help skipper the family through these storms, would share a pet theory about their misconduct.
- [11:33]
Scott Lehigh
Well, one of the things that I've heard this several times, is that when branches of that family, when some of Ethel's children would get in trouble, that Ted would shake his head and say,
- [11:45]
Andrew Goldman
that's not the Kennedy side. That's the Skakel side. That's Scott Lehigh, who's covered Massachusetts politics for over 40 years, mostly for the Boston Globe, where he's currently a columnist. Few living reporters have known or covered as many Kennedys as he has.
- [12:01]
Scott Lehigh
I think that people sort of try to attribute some of their misbehavior to the. To the Skakel side.
- [12:08]
Andrew Goldman
The rift between the two families continued into the next generation. Julie Skakel reported and framed that Rush Sr. Didn't allow the kids to refer to New York's airport as JFK, which it was renamed in 1963 following the president's assassination. He insisted it remain Idlewild. All this animus meant that growing up the Skakel kids, Michael and his siblings never got to know their Kennedy cousins. Here's what Bobby had to say on Dateline.
- [12:36]
Ryan Reynolds
My mother was, I wouldn't say, estranged from her family, but there was no contact between the two families. And I. I never knew any Skakel, really. I never knew. I would not have recognized any skakel prior to 1983.
- [12:52]
Andrew Goldman
I should mention briefly, Bobby and I didn't speak for this podcast. His old email sends an auto reply that he's too busy now to write back. And the HHS press office never responded to my interview request. No bad blood, to my knowledge. But as you know, I did work with him to write a book about Michael's wrongful conviction. So at this point, you may be thinking, wait a minute. If the Kennedys and Skaggles despise each other, how could that even happen? Like so many things in this story, it all starts with drugs. At the top of the show, you heard Michael, from his hospital bed allude to Ethel Kennedy growing fond of him because of his efforts to help her son David, who was just a Few years older than Michael David Kennedy, Ethel's fourth of 11 children, right below Bobby Jr. Was only 12 in 1968 when his father, then presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy, was assassinated in Los Angeles's Ambassador Hotel. David was in a room upstairs watching the news of his father shooting on TV at 1:44 this morning, Pacific time. The life of Senator Robert F. Kennedy ended 42 years after his beginning and 25 hours after he was felled by an assassin. The things that David saw that night and the impact it had on his family left him and his older brother Bobby particularly haunted. Within two years of the assassination, David was in the throes of addiction. By 1979, his drug problems were known to the public. Newspapers reported he'd been mugged in a New York City hotel known as a heroin supermarket and shooting gallery. Around the same time, Michael Skakel was struggling with his own drug and alcohol abuse. His stint at the Elan School, unsurprisingly, did little to help. But in 1982, Michael finally found something that worked for him, and with the help of aa, he got sober. David, on the other hand, continued to struggle. Michael had met his cousin David in passing, but like most Skakels and Kennedys, they weren't particularly close. In the early 80s, Michael found himself spending more time in Boston. While there, he started to nose around his Kennedy cousins, who seemed as curious about him as he was about them. Michael had one thing that some of his Kennedy relatives didn't a sobriety success story. He wasn't shy about sharing. And David Kennedy's girlfriend seemed to see Michael as a lifeline. She begged Michael to help David with his substance abuse and in whatever way possible. In early 1984, Michael got David into the same facility where he'd gotten sober, St. Mary's Rehabilitation in Minneapolis. After David's four weeks in treatment were up, Michael says he flew to Minnesota to retrieve him. For David, rehab didn't take. According to Michael, almost immediately after leaving the facility, David was already off the wagon. In the subsequent weeks, David continued his downward spiral. Michael, who was at that time living in his Uncle Jimmy's spread in Bel Air, California, invited David to crash with him. But David said he needed to be in Palm beach for Easter, where his ailing grandmother, family matriarch Rose Kennedy, wintered.
- [16:01]
Michael Skakel
So I said, if you change your mind, you know where I am. And like a week later, I got a call from Ethel saying, David's in trouble. Is there any way you could get him into another place? And I said, yeah, let me make some Calls.
- [16:18]
Andrew Goldman
Michael says he called several facilities searching for an open bed.
- [16:22]
Michael Skakel
And I told Ethel that there won't be a slot open for another two weeks. But if I tell them who he is, I can guarantee they'll let him in tomorrow, they'll make room for him. And she said, absolutely not. So I told her, you know, I would be down the next morning or the day after. And I turned on the TV the next morning, and David had died at the Brazilian court. And the rest was history.
- [16:54]
Andrew Goldman
With that, in 1984, at just 28 years old, David Kennedy died alone in his seedy Palm beach hotel room. Another young Kennedy gone before his time. According to Michael, Ethel never forgot his efforts on behalf of her troubled son.
- [17:12]
Michael Skakel
What I tried to do for David transcended the Hatfield McCoy thing. And, you know, addiction doesn't have a prejudice.
- [17:24]
Andrew Goldman
Addiction may not have prejudice, but it does seem to have preferences. It tends to run in families, and the Kennedys were no exception. A few months before David's death, Bobby Kennedy Jr. Then 28 and having recently resigned from the Manhattan DA's office after failing the bar, was arrested for heroin possession after getting sick from a suspected overdose on a flight to Rapid City, South Dakota. The arrest seemed to shock Bobby into addressing his addiction. Shortly after emerging from rehab in 1983, Bobby was looking for support in his sobriety and started spending a lot of time drug free in the great outdoors with a cousin who'd tried to help his brother Michael.
- [18:04]
Ryan Reynolds
So we ended up spending a lot of time together. He lived in Greenwich. I lived in Mount Kisco, New York, just a few miles from each other. His family had a ski house up in the Catskills. So I took my children up there almost every weekend I went during the summers. I did kayaking trips, whitewater trips with them. I spent a lot of time in doing wilderness trips with them, and I went to literally thousands of 12 step meetings with them.
- [18:33]
Andrew Goldman
Hearing Michael describe that time in his life, it seems lifted straight from the pages of an L.L. bean catalog. In addition to the rafting trips and ski weekends you just heard Bobby describe, there were pickup football games in Hyannisport with Bobby, Bobby's brother, and their Cousin, John Kennedy Jr. Michael grew even tighter with his long lost relatives. Bobby and brothers Max and Chris, all three sober, served as ushers at Michael's national 1991 wedding. Michael Skakel was officially in with the Kennedy clan, at least for the moment. There's only one Ozempic.
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Andrew Goldman
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Ryan Reynolds
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- [19:41]
Andrew Goldman
There's only one Ozempic.
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Andrew Goldman
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- [20:40]
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- [20:47]
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- [21:15]
Andrew Goldman
In 1994, Michael Skakel's growing social circle of Kennedy cousins expanded once again. This time it was Bobby's younger brother named Unhelpfully for the purposes of this podcast.
- [21:26]
Michael Skakel
Michael Michael called and said, hey, is there any way that I can come up to the house in Windham because our plans fell through in Vail or something like that. And I said yeah, absolutely. And I gave him the master suite and his kids all had rooms and their friends. And he said, do you have a fax machine? I said yeah. And it turns out he was running Teddy's 94 campaign against Mitt Romney.
- [21:59]
Andrew Goldman
Mitt Romney, as you probably know, became the 2012 Republican presidential nominee who lost to Barack Obama. But his first run for office was back in 1994 when he ran for Senate against Ted Kennedy. He'd already made a ton of money in finance and as the son of George Romney, a popular governor from Michigan had more potential than the usual palookas Kennedy faced every six years. Michael Skakel was 34 years old, but fresh out of college and newly married. That weekend at Wyndham, his cousin Michael Kennedy, who was Teddy's campaign manager, asked
- [22:32]
Michael Skakel
him like, well, what are you doing for work? I said, well, I'm trying. I really, really, really want to get in the sports marketing field, but I just keep getting the door slammed in my face. And he said, why don't you come work for me? He said, you'll love it, it's a blast. He goes, you stay, stay at my house in Cohasset. He said, I've got like 15 bedrooms right on the ocean. We're going to be working 18 hour days. And I said, I don't know anything about politics. He said, you'll learn quick. And I did.
- [23:05]
Andrew Goldman
Michael did advance scheduling VIP stumpers for Teddy like Alec Baldwin and driving Michael Kennedy around. I asked the Globe's Scott Lehigh if he knew Michael Kennedy.
- [23:16]
Scott Lehigh
Michael. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, not an impressive person in my mind. I remember sitting with him at the Parker House talking about the campaign. It was me, him and someone else and I just, I mean he talked like a dope, but I also remember sort of bragging about all the damage he and a couple friends had done to a hotel room somewhere. I'm thinking, why the hell is he telling me this?
- [23:38]
Andrew Goldman
Despite his less than impressive hotel room trashing campaign manager and the strength of his opponent, Ted Kennedy would ultimately win his sixth Senate reelection handily. Just a few minutes ago, iPhone rang. Mitt Romney called me to congratulate me on being re elected to the United States Senate. It might have been the last dregs, but the campaign gave Michael Skakel a close up peek at the magic of Camelot. The world his Kennedy cousins inhabited was glamorous and exciting. He was hooked.
- [24:11]
Michael Skakel
It was incredible. It was absolutely incredible, you know, to see how people reacted, how the system works.
- [24:23]
Andrew Goldman
As soon as the confetti and ticker tape from Ted Kennedy's victory party got swept away, Michael Skakel found himself in need of a new job. His cousin soon delivered. Michael Kennedy had been running the Boston nonprofit Citizens Energy, a household fuel company providing heat to low income families. Originally started by his older brother, brother Joe, Michael Kennedy took It over. Following Joe's successful 1986 congressional run, Michael Kennedy needed a new international programs director. So Michael Skakel moved to Cohasset, a town on the south shore of Massachusetts Bay, a wealthy commuter suburb of Boston, like Greenwich is to Manhattan. Michael Skakel was now fully inside the Kennedy orbit. And from that vantage point, he had a front row seat to a scandal that would ultimately blow up political careers, upend personal lives and provide endless tabloid fodder. Recall that shortly before Michael moved to Cohasset, his cousin Michael Kennedy had first reappeared in his life, calling to ask if he and his kids could come to Windom to ski and stay at the house. He didn't bring wife Vicky, but did indeed bring his three preteen kids. Also along for the trip was their babysitter, Marissa, who had just turned 16 years old.
- [25:39]
Michael Skakel
The weekend that Michael came with his children, while he was running Teddy's campaign, he came with Marisa Varaki, the babysitter. And I thought that it was. I didn't know how old she was because she looked really, really young. And when I was saying goodnight, I came up and say goodnight. You know, they're sitting very close to each other and they're both drinking what looked like wine. And I thought, okay, that's a little strange.
- [26:09]
Andrew Goldman
It was more than a little strange. As he'd soon learn, Marissa's parents were dear friends of Michael and Vicki Kennedy. They lived in their own seaside mansion right down the street, so close that Marissa could walk home from babysitting. They were in and out of the Kennedy House and the Kennedys in and out of the Varrockis. Marissa's father, Paul Verachi, nine years older than Michael Kennedy, was loaded. He'd started a company that sought to consolidate the fragmented ambulance business in 1992, and six years later sold it for over a billion dollars, which in those days was still considered a lot of money. Paul Varrocki was also close to Joe Kennedy. He had contributed lavishly to his campaigns and was offered a board seat on Citizens Energy, which makes what unfolded even more shocking. Several times a year since his Harvard days, Michael Kennedy would take a rotating cast of friends and on whitewater rafting and camping trips. Michael Skakel, who went on several of these excursions, remembers that his cousin brought his kids and Marisa, but his wife Vicky didn't come along. Michael also noted that on at least one trip, Marissa took leave from the kids to partake in one of the Otter Kennedy camping rituals, the vodka sauna.
- [27:26]
Michael Skakel
They would heat up the rocks and put them in a big pot and pour a bottle of vodka on it, and everybody would, you know, inhale. I didn't do it just because I wasn't partaking in that stuff anymore.
- [27:40]
Andrew Goldman
But there was something else that Michael says caught his attention.
- [27:43]
Michael Skakel
The one thing that stuck out the most was, you know, watching Michael's young children see he and the babysitter going to a tent, and they just look very forlorn as young kids. And I just. It kind of broke my heart for the. For the kids.
- [28:03]
Andrew Goldman
Michael says by the time he was with Michael Kennedy and Marissa on the rafting trips, he had started to suspect that the two were romantically entwined. Did you talk to Michael Kennedy when you first began to suspect the affair?
- [28:16]
Michael Skakel's Voice / Narration
No, I didn't bring it up. No. Honestly, I didn't think it was appropriate because I was like, well, maybe this is just me. You know what I mean? I had no proof.
- [28:27]
Andrew Goldman
Also, Michael says that because Marissa was 16 and legally of age in Massachusetts, he didn't feel it was his place to get involved.
- [28:34]
Michael Skakel's Voice / Narration
I wasn't judging him. I just said, look, what you're doing is between you and God, as long as. If you're not hurting. So, I mean, she was. By the time I was there, she was already of age.
- [28:46]
Scott Lehigh
Yeah.
- [28:47]
Michael Skakel's Voice / Narration
You know what I mean?
- [28:49]
Andrew Goldman
At some point, you had to start talking kind of more directly about it. Right.
- [28:56]
Michael Skakel's Voice / Narration
Honestly, it was so long ago. I couldn't honestly tell you when I started talking about it.
- [29:03]
Andrew Goldman
Michael doesn't remember exactly when he and Michael Kennedy started openly acknowledging the affair, but he does remember clearly that in January 1995, right around the time of Rose Kennedy's death, when the family was gathered at her compound, he got a call from Michael Kennedy. I'm in huge trouble. Kennedy said, vicki caught me with the babysitter.
- [29:23]
Michael Skakel's Voice / Narration
He called me halfway up from Hyannis Port back to Cohasset, saying, holy, man. Holy, holy. I got caught with Marissa by Vicki. And he said, she's definitely going to go to the press. She's gonna. And he said, I don't know what to do. I said, just meet me in my house.
- [29:41]
Andrew Goldman
Michael had already guided some of his other cousins through recovery journeys. In Michael Kennedy's desperate phone call, Michael Skickel says he saw another opportunity to help.
- [29:51]
Michael Skakel's Voice / Narration
I called Father Martin, who was a guy in the treatment industry who had one of the best treatment centers in the country in Haverty Grace, Maryland. And I gave him, Michael, an ultimatum. And I said, well, you know, you could continue on doing what you're doing, and you're Just going to destroy you, you're going to destroy your family and your wife and it won't be good. I said, or you could take a 30 day timeout and learn something about yourself.
- [30:25]
Andrew Goldman
Michael Kennedy's 1995 rehab stint was for alcohol. Though Michael Skakel says he hoped it would also lead his cousin to stop the affair.
- [30:33]
Michael Skakel's Voice / Narration
I did talk to Michael about the affair once. He went to Father Martin's. I said, you need to end this shit. You're going to destroy your life.
- [30:42]
Andrew Goldman
Michael Kennedy didn't end the affair. But a year later, in 1996, Kennedy went back to rehab, this time for sex addiction. Kennedy seemed to be trying to repair his life and marriage. What he probably didn't foresee was that both were about to come crashing down. In the fall of 1996, Marisa Varaki, now 18 years old, headed off to college in Boston. I know the sleuthiest among you have already caught it. Yes, Marisa Veraci is the same Marissa Veracki who was staying at Geron Ridge's South Boston loft, the site of Michael Skakel's non existent admission that he'd killed Martha. You remember Jaron, the confession witness at Michael's trial who retracted her testimony on the stand, the one who left this voicemail on her friend's answering machine.
- [31:34]
Michael Skakel's Voice / Narration
I said he was drunk and that's what he said.
- [31:35]
Andrew Goldman
I said, you know, he told us, you know, that he hit it with a golf club back in 1996. Michael Skakel's connection to the Moxley murder was not yet headline news. But the effects of the affair and carrying the secret weighed heavily on Marissa. One of the few people she could talk to about it was Michael Skakel, who'd by then become her friend and confidant.
- [31:58]
Michael Skakel
I got a call from Marissa and she said, michael, I don't know what to do. I'm in trouble. I've lied to everybody. I'm feeling extremely depressed. And I said, well, when my wife at the time and I have problems, I. There's a woman in Cambridge, Massachusetts who I think is good. I think she's helpful. I think she could help you.
- [32:24]
Andrew Goldman
Michael says he made an appointment for Marisa with his therapist and dropped her off.
- [32:29]
Michael Skakel
And then again another three weeks later. Four weeks later, she called me and said, the doctor says that I need to tell my parents and I don't want to.
- [32:42]
Andrew Goldman
She hadn't told her parents the truth about.
- [32:44]
Michael Skakel
She hadn't said anything. I said, look, you need to take care of Marissa. If that's what the doctor says to do, then that's what you should do.
- [32:53]
Andrew Goldman
Michael says Marissa followed his guidance. Not long after, all hell broke loose.
- [33:01]
Michael Skakel
A few nights later, I got a call at 11 o' clock at night from Marissa saying my mom has gone off the wagon and is calling everybody who will listen. And she's screaming about how Michael raped me. So I got in the car. I drove into Boston from Cohasset, went to their apartment that was right across from the Rose Garden. The doorman let me in. They had the penthouse.
- [33:29]
Andrew Goldman
Michael says he tried to calm Marissa's mother, June Verachi, down, but eventually she locked herself in a room and crawled out onto the roof. Cops and firemen were called for fear she might jump. June was transported to the hospital.
- [33:42]
Michael Skakel's Voice / Narration
We got a call about 45 minutes later from the head of the ER saying that, you know, there's going to be an investigation. They wanted Marisa down there. And so Marisa and I went to Mass General.
- [33:59]
Andrew Goldman
For Michael Kennedy, it must have been a moment of pure panic. The affair had just ended, and now the girl's mother was causing a public spectacle, airing his dirty laundry to strangers and possibly inviting the attention of law enforcement. It must have felt to Michael Kennedy like he was suspended a mile above a rocky canyon with a piece of rapidly fraying dental floss behind closed doors. Vicki and Michael Kennedy's marriage was in the process of imploding, but the press hadn't yet caught wind of his marital troubles or his affair with Marissa. As winter became spring, the Kennedy name was back in the headlines for a different reason. Michael Kennedy's eldest brother Joe, was preparing to launch his campaign for governor of Massachusetts. Here's the Boston Globes. Scott Lehigh.
- [34:46]
Scott Lehigh
I think publicly he was perceived as the next big, you know, Kennedy political success story.
- [34:52]
Andrew Goldman
Though he hadn't formally announced, the media was already reporting that Joe was a likely shoo in.
- [34:58]
Scott Lehigh
Joe is very popular and it looks like he's gonna run. So that's about the time that the babysitter story starts coming up, the babysitter story.
- [35:08]
Andrew Goldman
It officially began on April 25, 1997, when the Boston Globe broke the news on a one carrying Lehigh's byline and the headline, kennedy King Allegedly had affair with Sitter. In addition to revealing the affair publicly for the first time, the article reported that it had been a source of trouble for Michael and Vicki Kennedy for at least two years. Ever since Vicki discovered her husband in bed with Marissa in early 1995, a more salacious scandal New England had rarely seen.
- [35:39]
Scott Lehigh
The town was obsessed with it. It was an all Consuming story for some months as you tried to track down the various aspects of. Of what had happened with Michael and the babysitter.
- [35:51]
Andrew Goldman
Lehi's not kidding. I remember following every drip trip detail of it from the cubby of my first writing job at Boston magazine. Every day, the respectable establishment Globe, then owned by the New York Times, did battle for scoops with the grimier tabloid, the Boston Herald, once owned by Rupert Murdoch. It was like Boston media was doing a trial run for the Clinton link Lewinsky affair.
- [36:14]
Scott Lehigh
The question quickly became, had there been a sexual relationship with a babysitter before she was 16, in which case it would have been statutory rape and serious problems for very serious problems for Michael Kennedy.
- [36:28]
Andrew Goldman
The same day the babysitter story broke in the Boston Globe, the Norfolk county district attorney announced a preliminary investigation into whether the relationship between Michael and Marissa had actually begun when she was 14. Wherever the truth lay, Merce's father, Paul Varrocki, reacted to the situation as any father, especially a very rich one, would. He went on the warpath and made the seriousness of his fury apparent when he hired Bob Popeo, one of the most politically connected lawyers in Boston, to represent him.
- [36:58]
Scott Lehigh
So it was two families with money and two families with publicity. I won't say publicity managers, because it wasn't exactly meant that way, but people who were very media savvy, kind of going to war over. Over this story.
- [37:13]
Andrew Goldman
As the chaos unfolded, Michael Skakel says he suddenly found himself caught in the crossfire. A quick note to listeners. The audio you're about to hear is compiled from different conversations I had with Michael. I went back to him repeatedly to confirm all the details.
- [37:29]
Michael Skakel
When the story broke, Michael asked me. He said, oh, my God, what do I do?
- [37:34]
Michael Skakel's Voice / Narration
What do I do?
- [37:34]
Michael Skakel
And I said, look, dude, I've been warning you forever. Leave her alone. And that's when he said, well, you've got to go after.
- [37:44]
Andrew Goldman
What did he say specifically?
- [37:47]
Michael Skakel
He said, you have to go after Paul publicly and Marisa. And I said, you know, I'm not gonna do it. I said, I'm not gonna tell the truth about you or lie about them.
- [38:00]
Andrew Goldman
That is, he would protect his cousin's secret, but he wouldn't participate in trying to bury Marissa or her father in the press.
- [38:07]
Michael Skakel
And he just said, well, then you're off the reservation. And I said, well, I was never on that reservation.
- [38:13]
Andrew Goldman
And so that was the end of your employment?
- [38:15]
Michael Skakel
No, because how is he. If he. He wanted. He made it impossible for me to. He made it all almost impossible for me to work. He Also got angry at me.
- [38:25]
Andrew Goldman
He says he tried to reason with his cousin Michael.
- [38:29]
Michael Skakel's Voice / Narration
I pleaded with him to just please sign a non disparagement clause. I said I'll sign one and you sign one. I'll show you legally that I'm serious. I don't want to fight you. I don't want to fight anybody. I just want out. Pay me severance of three months like you've been doing with everyone else, and I'm out of here, he says.
- [38:48]
Andrew Goldman
Michael Kennedy refused. Shortly after, Michael Skakel says he found that his keys no longer worked at the office. His company credit card was turned off, and with that, the fragile bridge that had been built between himself and his Kennedy kin crumbled. Michael says he was kicked out of Camelot. His cousin Bobby remembers it differently.
- [39:10]
Ryan Reynolds
I never stopped talking to him, but Michael stopped talking to me and all the members of my family whoever was
- [39:15]
Andrew Goldman
giving whom the silent treatment. Things were about to get much worse. In the wake of the Michael Kennedy babysitter controversy, rumors of all kinds began to fly, including some that centered on Michael skakel. In an August 1997 Vanity Fair piece, reporter Michael Schneerson wrote, among the Kennedys and their friends, the story that began to circulate was that Michael had been betrayed by his Citizens Energy colleague and cousin, Michael Skakel, as in Michael Skakel, leaked the babysitter story. Here's Boston Globe columnist Scott Lehigh again.
- [39:50]
Scott Lehigh
Well, it was pretty obvious that Michael or his lawyer was quite a good source for the Herald. I think you can't read the stories and look at that without thinking that
- [40:01]
Andrew Goldman
I've asked Michael numerous times about this accusation, and he has always vehemently denied it.
- [40:07]
Michael Skakel
I never broke the story.
- [40:09]
Andrew Goldman
Did you or your lawyer speak to the press subsequently after the story broke?
- [40:14]
Michael Skakel's Voice / Narration
Absolutely not. Never.
- [40:16]
Andrew Goldman
Regardless what Michael did next didn't exactly calm the Kennedy family's nerves. When prosecutors mulling statutory rape charges against Michael Kennedy wanted to talk, Michael agreed.
- [40:27]
Michael Skakel
I sat with the prosecutors for four hours and answered honestly to the best of my ability what I knew and didn't know.
- [40:35]
Andrew Goldman
That question who knew what about the babysitter affair and when was exactly what prosecutors and the public wanted to know. Here's Scott Lehigh.
- [40:44]
Scott Lehigh
The question became, when had there been a sexual relationship? And but it also became, what had Joe Kennedy done about this?
- [40:55]
Andrew Goldman
Meaning had Joe Kennedy tried to do something to stop the affair between Michael Kennedy and the babysitter? Joe, hoping to be Massachusetts next governor, found himself in the hot seat.
- [41:06]
Scott Lehigh
Originally, I think he said he hadn't known that Michael was in a relationship with this person. Then I think later it became he hadn't realized that there was an allegation of an underaged relationship.
- [41:19]
Andrew Goldman
Scott Lehigh remembers that the press coverage framed Michael Skakel as having at least attempted to intervene to stop the affair.
- [41:26]
Scott Lehigh
Skakel I think he was one of the people who objected to this and tried to get this thing ended, this relationship ended. The storyline was accepted that he had tried to do the right thing.
- [41:39]
Andrew Goldman
Michael Skakel says that long before the story broke in the papers, he had voiced concerns to both Bobby and Joe Kennedy about the relationship and was told in no uncertain terms to mind his business. Whatever Joe or Bobby had said to Michael, done or not done about the affair, the public blowback for the Kennedys was swift.
- [41:58]
Scott Lehigh
I think it's fair to say that it wasn't hugely convincing that they had done much that would earn the public's admiration.
- [42:08]
Andrew Goldman
And there were more headwinds afoot. The same month the babysitter story broke, Joe Kennedy's ex wife began promoting her upcoming book about her troubled marriage to Joe and their painful, very public separation. The memoir also criticized some of the Kennedy family for protecting Joe's political image at her expense.
- [42:29]
Podcast Advertiser / Narrator
For congressman Joe Kennedy, son of Robert Kennedy, the last 10 days have been a nightmare. Headlines scream of clouds over Camelot. To Kennedy, it must feel more like a tornado. In Massachusetts, seeing the Kennedy legacy tarnished
- [42:43]
Andrew Goldman
by scandal involving women is hardly new,
- [42:45]
Podcast Advertiser / Narrator
but so far, Joe Kennedy seems to be paying a higher than usual price.
- [42:50]
Andrew Goldman
Joe Kennedy may have been down, but he wasn't totally out yet. On June 18, 1997, Kennedy spoke to reporters at a news conference on Capitol Hill saying, quote, I've made it very clear that I never heard, other than in press reports, that any relationship took place prior to the woman's 16th birthday while Joe Kennedy worked to repair his public image. In the meantime, the criminal case against Michael Kennedy was withering on the vine. Marissa and her family had decided not to cooperate, citing a desire to protect Marissa from the scrutiny of such a high profile trial. And then on July 8, the Norfolk county district attorney dropped all charges. That same day, Vicki Kennedy issued a statement through her lawyer saying, quote, the district attorney's decision to close his investigation will help put an end to a nightmare for me and my children. As I told the district attorney's office, I have no knowledge and I do not believe that Michael ever committed any criminal wrongdoing. I hope that the media will now respect my privacy and my children's privacy and allow us to move forward with our Lives Charges may have been officially dropped, but the damage to Joe's gubernatorial ambitions was already done. The one two punch of the babysitter and his own marital problems had eroded the public's trust. With his polls cratering in the governor's race, Joe took his medicine on August 28, 1997. In recent weeks, I've come to the conclusion, reluctantly, that if I am a candidate for governor next year, the race will focus on personal and family questions. Therefore, I've decided not to be a candidate for governor in 1998. By the fall of 1997, some of the highest profile candidates had seen their reputations irrevocably damaged. Michael Kennedy was in the process of getting divorced. Joe Kennedy's political career was in ruins. He would not seek reelection to Congress in 1998 and hasn't run for office since. As for Michael Skakel, he was out of a job and on the outs with his Kennedy cousins. And whether rational or not, he became increasingly convinced that there was more to come, that members of the Kennedy clan would seek some kind of revenge against him for meddling in the babysitter affair. As I've already mentioned, over the years, Michael Skakel has developed an acute sense of persecution. And what was about to happen caused a major flare up. We haven't talked much about Martha Moxley in this episode, but in the background, as the babysitter controversy was unfolding, the investigation into Martha's murder was rocketing along on a parallel track. The Unsolved Mysteries episode in early early 1996 and then the reward money bump that summer had renewed public interest in the case and given Inspector Frank Garr new leads to follow. But once the babysitter scandal broke in April 1997, the 22 year old cold case got an exponential boost. The media was writing about the Kennedys and their Skakel cousin, yes, but also about how that Skakel cousin had been linked to Martha Moxley's murder.
- [46:02]
Michael Skakel
I remember in the press they were saying, Michael Skakel's a potential murderer. And I just went, wow. And I just felt that my reputation was just being trashed.
- [46:15]
Andrew Goldman
Whether true or not, behind the media coverage, Michael believed he sensed the unseen hands of Michael Kennedy and his family's machine. Michael decided it was time to take preemptive action.
- [46:26]
Michael Skakel
And I said, you know, if you guys are gonna keep lying about me, then I'll start telling the truth about other stuff.
- [46:33]
Andrew Goldman
In late 1997, he started to consider writing a tell all memoir. One that would include damning details about his Kennedy kin. A kind of literary collateral. He might never have followed through on the idea. But for the Kennedy curiosity,
- [46:54]
David Sly
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Andrew Goldman
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- [47:32]
Andrew Goldman
Oh these just the most perfect fitting jeans my stylist sent me.
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- [48:37]
Podcast Advertiser / Narrator
night in a skiing accident in Colorado
- [48:40]
Andrew Goldman
on New Year's Eve 1997, less than a year after the babysitter story broke. Michael Kennedy, who'd been playing football on his skis with no helmet on, crashed into a tree and died. As with every Kennedy tragedy, the press swarmed.
- [48:54]
Podcast Advertiser / Narrator
Michael Kennedy had led a mostly private life until scandal tarnished his image. Earlier this year, he was accused but never prosecuted for an alleged affair with a teenage babysitter. The rumor soured his brother Congressman Joseph Kennedy's bid to become governor of Massachusetts.
- [49:12]
Andrew Goldman
By then, Michael Kennedy had become a punchline in Boston. His shocking death ended the press pylon, but the damage to the family reputation outlived him. And Michael Skakel came to believe that some of his Kennedy relatives faulted him, at least in part, for that damage. Do you think that the Kennedy family believes that you are instrumental in either ending the political career of Joe Kennedy or causing the death of Michael Kennedy?
- [49:39]
Michael Skakel
Absolutely.
- [49:40]
Andrew Goldman
Michael says one of his cousins has even said so to his face several times.
- [49:44]
Michael Skakel
He said, you know, that it was because of me that Michael died. It's like I was in New York. Michael skied into a tree. Michael skied recklessly. He was very reckless in everything he did.
- [49:58]
Andrew Goldman
It's hard to argue that point. Michael Kennedy's recklessness tore his own family apart. Michael Stakel was concerned that it would tear his life apart as well. Michael's perception, whether accurate or not, was that some of his Kennedy kin saw him as a villain in the latest dark chapter of their history. And based on that, he says, he began to worry that some of them might seek revenge against him, perhaps in the form of a smear campaign that could hurt his future career chances. So on January 1, 1998, the day after Michael Kennedy's death, Michael signed an NDA with a now retired writing professor named Richard Hoffman. I met with Hoffman in the study of his Salem, Massachusetts, home in June 2023. Did you feel like Michael was doing this as a defensive move? That this was possibly sort of.
- [50:44]
Richard Hoffman
Partly. Partly, yes.
- [50:47]
Andrew Goldman
Can you talk about that a little bit?
- [50:49]
Richard Hoffman
He thought they were coming for him, and I think he believed that. Look, I'm not going to go quietly. I have stories to tell. You force me in the position of being a whistleblower, I'm gonna blow it loud.
- [51:04]
Andrew Goldman
Michael spent three days holed up with Hoffman, spilling his guts.
- [51:08]
Richard Hoffman
We went on a kind of retreat to his family's place up in Wyndham, New York, and I just got him talking on tape.
- [51:17]
Andrew Goldman
Three days is a long time, and Michael had a lot to get off his chest. He didn't just limit his storytelling to axe grinding about his Kennedy relatives. He mapped out everything that had happened in his life so far. His difficult childhood, the trauma of his time at Elan, and, of course, Martha Moxley's murder. Hoffman thought Michael's life story had all the trappings of a great memoir.
- [51:40]
Richard Hoffman
But the book that I envisioned, you know, I was looking at the Pulitzer. How could it be that someone with that wealth and that privilege could live a Dickensian boyhood?
- [51:56]
Andrew Goldman
But Hoffman said his book agent had A different notion. He instructed Hoffman to toss in every bit of dark side of Camelot sleaze. Michael had alleged, that book that I
- [52:06]
Richard Hoffman
had envisioned was fading farther and farther away, and the book that the agent wanted was more and more salacious. At each draft,
- [52:20]
Andrew Goldman
Hoffman put together a proposal for the book titled Dead Man Talking, a reference to the turn of phrase dead man talk Michael says Ethel Kennedy once used with him, vowing him to secrecy when they met for lunch in Boston to discuss Michael Kennedy's growing troubles with the babysitter. The proposal is a pretty tawdry document. It teases an insider's look at the babysitter scandal, Joe Kennedy's alleged efforts to hide his knowledge of it, and Michael Skakel's opinion that his cousin had indeed had sex with the babysitter when she was 14. There's also a promise to divulge another scandalous sexual exploit involving a Kennedy and a conspiratorial tidbit about efforts to dig up dirt on babysitter Marissa's father in order to silence him. If it's fulfilled the proposal's promise, the book had the potential to unleash a firestorm. But Michael Skakel says, before he even began shopping the book in earnest, it appears some of his Kennedy relatives got wind of it.
- [53:17]
Michael Skakel's Voice / Narration
There's no question in my mind they got wind of it because a certain famous person came to my house in
- [53:23]
Andrew Goldman
Florida following the babysitter affair, Michael had abandoned Cohasset. Not only had he been staked out many times by the press as the scandal broke, he was now unemployed and couldn't keep up with a mortgage. Not long after that, he and his wife Margot, now pregnant, decamped to his father's house in Hobe Sound, Florida. Michael says that in early 1998, the doorbell rang and a familiar figure was at his doorstep. A prominent businessman and friend of generations of Kennedys. He had a question for Michael.
- [53:54]
Michael Skakel
Are you or are you not writing this book?
- [53:57]
Michael Skakel's Voice / Narration
And I said, if they, if they sign a non disparagement clause and I sign one, we walk away from this. This stuff will never see the light of day, ever. Then this person who I love and respect highly, said, so you're writing a book? And I said, so you're telling me that they're not going to stop? And he got up and left and flew, flew, you know, hours back to where he was going when a member
- [54:28]
Andrew Goldman
of our production team reached out. The businessman, now elderly, praised Michael as a good guy with a great heart, saying he believed he was innocent. But he Denied knowing about the book or inquiring about it to Michael or being asked to speak with him on behalf of the Kennedys. Two weeks after that alleged visit, Michael says, that same doorbell rang again.
- [54:49]
Michael Skakel's Voice / Narration
And I open, there are two men that look like guys from Men in Black with dark glasses on and dark suits. And I said, can I help you? And they said, yeah, we're with the Secret Service.
- [54:59]
Andrew Goldman
Michael said, they showed their badges and their guns.
- [55:03]
Michael Skakel's Voice / Narration
They said, we believe you sent a death threat letter to President Bill Clinton.
- [55:10]
Andrew Goldman
He says it was promptly sorted out as a misunderstanding. But the agents posed a question.
- [55:15]
Michael Skakel's Voice / Narration
They said, do you have any idea why somebody would do this to you? I said, this sounds like these guys just trying to make me look bad because they think I'm writing a book about them.
- [55:26]
Andrew Goldman
By these guys, Michael told me he meant some of his Kennedy relatives.
- [55:30]
Michael Skakel's Voice / Narration
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Because they were trying to discredit me.
- [55:36]
Andrew Goldman
I wasn't able to independently corroborate all of the details of Michael's surprise Florida visits, but I've spoken with several people who said Michael told them about them at the time. So what did the visits mean? In Michael's eyes, there were a warning from some of his Kennedy relatives who he believed wanted to ensure the book never saw the light of day. But Michael didn't back down. His agent proceeded with shopping the proposal. Several Months later, in June 1998, a grand jury was convened in Martha Moxley's case with Michael as its target. In this timing, Michael sees something suspicious. Though I've not been able to verify his claims, he believes that as retribution for the book proposal for his role in the babysitter scandal, some members of the Kennedy clan use their political sway to influence the Moxley investigation, specifically turning its focus towards him. You thought perhaps maybe the Kennedys were behind your prosecution? Or is this something that you always suspected?
- [56:40]
Michael Skakel
Absolutely. Always suspected. Because of the things on those tapes are. Could put. Potentially put some of them, they wouldn't be liked very much in. They covet their reputation.
- [56:56]
Andrew Goldman
Michael has shared his theory with me time and time again. It's complex, convoluted even. But he's told me names of influential people whom he thinks pulled the levers of power to get him indicted. We aren't going to go into the details about the specifics of Michael's theory here. The tough part about reporting on alleged backdoor deals is that they're hard to substantiate, though I will say I tried. However, there is one thing I keep coming back to in my own reporting and it's that there does appear to be a sudden investigative shift towards Michael. After years of persistent efforts to buttress the case's existence against his brother Tommy and also Ken Littleton. The case file gets sparse in the late 90s, so it's hard to identify the exact moment when Michael became the primary suspect in this investigation. But in a March 1998 interview with Dateline, Frank Garr kept his options open. Who were the suspects in this case in 1975?
- [57:54]
Michael Skakel
Tommy Skakel. Michael Skakel, Ken Littleton, fellow by the name of Ed Hammond.
- [58:00]
Andrew Goldman
To be clear, Michael Skakel was not considered a serious suspect by police until the 1990s. 1998, who were the suspects? Same same people.
- [58:09]
Michael Skakel
Nothing has changed with the suspect list.
- [58:12]
Andrew Goldman
23 years, same names. It's possible Garr was just holding his cards close to his chest. But just three months later, in June 1998, an investigatory grand jury was convened. A surprising new development tonight in the unsolved murder of a Greenwich teenager. A one person grand jury has been appointed to probe the killing of Martha Moxley. This was a rare form of grand jury in Connecticut made up of a single judge in this case, 56 year old George Thim, who had been appointed to the bench in 1985 by the state's then governor, Democrat William O'.
- [58:48]
Michael Skakel's Voice / Narration
Neill.
- [58:49]
Andrew Goldman
In Connecticut, these one judge investigatory grand juries are are used to dig into difficult, long stalled cases because they have a power the police do not. The ability to issue subpoenas, meaning anyone who refuses to appear can be jailed for contempt. The judge also had the benefit of an 18 month mandate to investigate wherever the evidence led. Yet no witnesses were called by the state to testify about the longest running prime suspect, Tommy Skakel. The same was true for tutor Ken Littleton, although unlike Tommy, he did testify at the grand jury and was granted immunity in exchange for his cooperation. Michael was the only item on the lunch menu. The grand jury did arrive right on the heels of Mark Fuhrman's media blitz, during which he appeared on every outlet willing to amplify his investigation and his conclusion that Michael Skakel was Martha Moxley's killer. Former LAPD detective Mark Fuhrman believes he now has solved the mystery of this murder in Greenwich. And Michael, the 15 year old, is the prime suspect in Mark Fuhrman's book. But prosecutor Benedict and investigator Garr consistently poo pooed the notion that Furman's book had anything to do with their pursuit of Michael. Here's Garr in a Dateline interview years later, Mike Furman had nothing to do with this investigation. Never did and never will. His book didn't produce the indictment that resulted in the trial that I almost even want to dignify with a comment, but absolutely not. I mean, there's no way that any law enforcement authority would take the writings of anyone, Mark Fuhrman, or anyone, and use that as a guide. And that's what makes this part of the story so hard to pin down. Cause and effect, correlation versus causation gets incredibly muddy here. Many players had the power to influence the Moxley case. The police, the press, the public. It's hard to untangle what or who led to what Sutton associates. Jim Murphy, with whom Michael has stayed in touch over the years, has his take. He thinks it's strange that Michael suddenly found himself in the crosshairs of the state of Connecticut in 1998. You don't think it was enough that Mark Fuhrman comes out with his book and starts beating the drum in the newspapers?
- [61:08]
Michael Skakel
It never made any sense to me that it got to the point that it did, where they could indict Michael and then he go to trial and be found, found guilty of this and do so much time in jail. It just didn't make any sense.
- [61:21]
Andrew Goldman
I reached out to both Bobby and Joe Kennedy directly. As I mentioned earlier, Bobby didn't respond. And through his attorney, Joe replied to a list of questions we sent stating they were premised on fabricated and disproven rumors, but included no specifics beyond that. But in his 2016 interview with Dateline, Bobby had this to say for Michael,
- [61:43]
Ryan Reynolds
who had never had anything to do with the Kennedys and never claimed any advantage from being a Kennedy, was never considered himself a Kennedy. It became somehow confused in his mind that this tendential connection that he had with the Kennedy family had gotten him into this terrible, terrible charge.
- [62:03]
Andrew Goldman
Bobby, who'd gotten to know Michael well through their shared recovery journeys, had an explanation for his cousin's thinking.
- [62:09]
Ryan Reynolds
The thing that's important to understand about Michael Skakel is that he has very, very deep post Traumatic stress disorder from the years that he spent in a reform school in Maine. And one of the indicia of that illness is that he sometimes gets a kind of a vaguely paranoid worldview. And part of that worldview was that the Kennedys were conspiring to jail him. And, you know, in fact, there was a plausibility to it because every time he was mentioned and all of the prosecutorial interest in him was directly related to his connection to the Kennedy family.
- [62:52]
Andrew Goldman
Here's Michael's attorney, Stefan Seeger.
- [62:55]
Stefan Seeger
Michael has been through a lot. And you know, a man who serves 11 and a half years for a case that he shouldn't have been involved in the first place probably thinks about a lot of different things. He probably sees people who were his friends before are his enemies now. And a lot may go through his mind. Do I think that his connection to the Kennedy family, you know, put the, the guilty verdict into the, into the jurors mouths? I don't think that, but I do think that there are political aspects of this case that stem all the way from the grand jury.
- [63:30]
Andrew Goldman
But Seeger says he's not seen proof that Michael's theories are right.
- [63:35]
Stefan Seeger
Before I would implicate anybody on something like this, I would love to have evidence of that fact because that would really turn the whole system upside down.
- [63:43]
Andrew Goldman
In one of the great ironies of this story, by the time he was arrested in 2000, Michael Skakel had fully broken with the Kennedy family. Sworn them off, cut all ties. Yet in the minds of the media and public at large, Michael in some ways became a proxy for the Kennedy family's bad behavior. It was a compelling narrative. A rich kid with a privileged upbringing and a connection to America's most famous family tangled up in a grisly murder case. The coverage of his trial in some ways seemed like a kind of referendum on the well documented compendium of Kennedy misbehavior that never seemed to result in any serious consequences. The 1969 drowning of Mary Jo Kopechne on Chappaquiddick island off of Martha's Vineyard. After Teddy Kennedy drove his car into the drink and failed to alert the police till the next day. Teddy got a slap on the wrist. The 1973 Pam Kelly crash. 20 year old future congressman Joe Kennedy flipped a jeep full of Kennedy cousins and their friends on a nantucket road, leaving 18 year old Pam paralyzed. A $100 fine and no criminal charges. And then of course, in 1991, William Kennedy Smith was acquitted of rape after a high profile trial. So by 2002, when Michael Skakel was put on trial for Martha Moxley's murder, the public was ravenous for something that looked like justice. Bobby Kennedy, though Michael didn't want him to, attended the trial for two days. The two men had once been close and Bobby felt an obligation to show his support. He later told Dateline he believed the Kennedy association absolutely contributed to Michael's guilty verdict.
- [65:26]
Ryan Reynolds
I don't think there's any question that it was used in a prejudicial way, but it was used not because people hated the Kennedy family, but because it kind of fed the press interest. I think that Michael Skakel would not be in jail if people had not been able to call him Kennedy cousin.
- [65:44]
Andrew Goldman
And maybe that's one of the things we can say definitively here. Michael's connection to the Kennedy family, briefly close, mostly distant, still ended up shaping the path that led to his arrest. And whether his suspicions about some of his Kennedy relatives involvement in his prosecution are valid or the product of years of trauma. There is a lot that is strange about this case. So is Michael just incredibly unlucky or is there more to this story than meets the eye? There are pieces of Michael's theories and stories that he's told me that I simply can't corroborate. Does that mean they're not true? I can't say. As you heard Michael say earlier in the series, his recovery related way of life requires him to tell the truth or risk falling off the wagon.
- [66:33]
Michael Skakel's Voice / Narration
I have to be honest about everything or I'm screwed. If I'm not honest, then I'm in pain.
- [66:41]
Andrew Goldman
For his friends, it's sometimes been challenging to believe this to be the case.
- [66:45]
David Sly
But I'll tell you, like my ex wife used to say, I'd get off the phone, I'd be like, man, I just can't believe that that guy's going through right now. And she'd say, oh, that's got to be just made up.
- [66:55]
Andrew Goldman
This is David Sly, a Boston based real estate professional who's been a friend of Michael's since the 80s.
- [67:01]
David Sly
And then six months later it would, you know, you'd find out it was true. I never had any reason to doubt him. But if other people heard these things, they'd be like, well, that's crazy, or, oh, that would never happen. Or that's not the way the world works, you know? Sure enough, six months later, whatever he said would be like, yep, bang.
- [67:19]
Andrew Goldman
This phenomenon rings true to me. I'd like to share an illustrative anecdote. For years I'd heard snippets of a story Michael likes to tell about sitting across a desk from Fidel Castro inside Havana's palace of the Revolution, the seat of the Cuban government. He claimed he told Castro that prior to the 1959 revolution, before the land seizures and nationalization of private property, the Skakels had owned a sprawling oceanfront estate there. Here he is telling me again. And he looked at me, that would be Fidel Castro.
- [67:51]
Michael Skakel
And I said, when are we Going to get our house back. And he said, we nationalize that. I said, yeah, if that's what you want to call it. He said, as soon as the embargo's lifted, you can have your house back, but not until then. I said, yeah, well, the way I look at it, you owe us 40 years of rent. I said, I like your tobacco. Pay up in Cohibas. He was like, who the F is this guy?
- [68:15]
Andrew Goldman
And for many years, I thought Michael was out of his mind, surely a fabulist. And then a couple of years ago, I asked him to elaborate, and he said that it had been reported in the New York Times. So I dug around and I found it. Right there on the front page of. Of the February 19, 1996 edition, above a story about a Citizens Energy sponsored mission to Cuba, was a photo of Michael flanked by Bobby and Michael Kennedy, beaming across a desk from Castro. The story specifically mentioned a lively conversation about the Skakel estate that was nationalized after Castro came to power. So there you have it, an unbelievable Michael story that ultimately turned out to be true. And one of Michael's specific gripes relating to the Moxley case also has some evidence to back it up.
- [69:11]
Michael Skakel
Frank Garr stole my property. I get a call one day that Frank Garr has come up with a search and seizure warrant with state police with guns and demanded my property.
- [69:25]
Andrew Goldman
The property Michael's talking about. Here are the Hoffman tapes, a topic that still hits a nerve for him at trial. They played a major role in shaping how the jury saw Michael. But the story of how those tapes ended up in the prosecution's hands is itself one of the many strange twists in this case. Author Richard Hoffman says that six months after the grand jury was convened, there was a knock on his door.
- [69:49]
Richard Hoffman
It was this Connecticut state's attorney's investigator, Frank Gar. Little guy in a black suit with a ponytail, and a Massachusetts state trooper in his full regalia, Smokey the Bear hat and everything. Frank Gar shows me a piece of paper with the seal of the state of Connecticut on it. And they said they, they had a warrant to get this information about Michael Skakel. And I invited them in, sat him down at the kitchen table, you know, poured them each a coffee, and we sat there and I really thought what was going to happen was I would, I would say, okay, fine, you know, you came here with this and you, I'll give you the stuff and you'll see that you're barking up the wrong tree here. When I hesitated at one point, I said, what is it that you want from this machine material. And Gar signed, and he said, look, we can do this the easy way or we can do this the hard way.
- [70:57]
Andrew Goldman
Hoffman later testified that he believed that Inspector Garr was telling the truth when he said he had a warrant. He was not. What Gar had was a summons for Hoffman to testify at the grand jury, not a warrant for the tapes of his sessions with Michael. But Hoffman, who says he didn't fully understand what was happening, gave them up, as well as a copy of the unpublished book proposal and a box of family mementos and photos Michael had left with him. A week later, the Boston Herald published an article that teased a secret project penned by Michael Skakel about the Moxley case and life as a Kennedy relative.
- [71:30]
Richard Hoffman
And I called Gar. I had his card. He'd given me his card. I called him. I said, what the hell? I mean, this is a.
- [71:38]
Michael Skakel
This is.
- [71:39]
Richard Hoffman
This is a grand jury. How does this reporter suddenly have this book proposal? And he said, well, you know, I. I don't know. You know, we got a lot of people come and go in this place. Could be the cleaners, you know, maybe. Maybe one of the secretaries, you know, just. And. And then I thought, okay, this is not on the up and up.
- [72:00]
Andrew Goldman
This was a turning point for Hoffman. He'd wondered at most moments whether Michael's fears of persecution were valid or perhaps paranoid. He says this episode settled it for him.
- [72:10]
Richard Hoffman
I will say, here's where I began to really believe Michael. This all starts to look like the kgb.
- [72:17]
Andrew Goldman
In Michael's habeas case, the judge ruled that the tapes would have been discoverable. In other words, defense attorney Mickey Sherman would likely have lost any motions to keep them from being introduced at trial. All that to say, too bad. Tough luck. Once the tapes were in the state's hands, they were fair game. But what about after the trial? When the state vacated Michael's conviction in 2020, he requested that all of his property be returned. Specifically, the tapes. It should have been an easy ask. The clips that were played at trial, some of which you've heard in this podcast, are public record, but they're only a fragment of the many hours of tape that Michael recorded with Richard Hoffman. To this day, neither the original tapes nor any copies made by the state have been returned to Michael. For a time, while Michael's case was still in limbo, the state claimed the tapes had evidentiary value. In the wake of his conviction being vacated, the state now says it's unable to find them. I asked Michael's Attorney Stefan Seeger about it. The state has been unable to produce the so called Hoffman tapes. They were, you know, the centerpiece of the closing. Does that seem surprising to you?
- [73:30]
Stefan Seeger
The state loses evidence. They lose evidence conveniently sometimes. But in this particular case, Andrew, I can tell you it's absurd to believe that somebody charged with the custody of the evidence in this level of a murder case, that everybody in the country knows about, that a key piece of evidence, something that the state itself purports is a confession, would be left out of the lead investigator's sight in any way whatsoever. So for me to believe that Frank Gar does not know where these tapes are, it's just, it's, it's. I can't fathom it.
- [74:11]
Andrew Goldman
As of this recording, Michael is still in a lawsuit against Frank Garr and the town of Greenwich to get the tapes back. Wherever you land on the question of Michael's grander theories about the Kennedys, the Hoffman tapes serve as a reminder that there are many questions about how this case has been handled over its long and winding history. Missing evidence, tunnel vision, unexplored leads. Martha's case is a tangle of peculiarities and unforeseen twists. And in 2003, a year after Michael's conviction, it took yet another unexpected turn when a new figure emerged in the case. Someone who'd been close to the tight knit group of Belhaven teens at the center of this story. Someone who was adamant that everything that happened in the case up to that point was all wrong. Someone who said he had information about who really killed Martha Moxley. Next time on Dead Certain. The Martha Moxley murder.
- [75:14]
Stefan Seeger
You're here today because you have information
- [75:17]
Scott Lehigh
in regards to the Martha Moxley murder case.
- [75:19]
Andrew Goldman
Is that correct? The police told us that they knew
- [75:23]
Justworks Narrator
for sure it wasn't one person who did it because it was so brutal and it would take extraordinary strength.
- [75:29]
Andrew Goldman
There's no doubt in my mind that they were involved.
- [75:31]
Michael Skakel
They were there when the murder took place.
- [75:35]
Andrew Goldman
From NBC News studios and highly reported replaceable productions, Dead the Martha Moxley murder is written, reported, executive produced and hosted by me, Andrew Goldman. Alexa Danner is executive producer, writer and head of audio at NBC News Studios. Megan Shiels is senior producer and writer. Rob Heath is our producer. Nora Battelle is our story editor. Fact checking by Simone Buteau and Laura Hunkadea. Production is assistance by Brendan Weisel. Sound designed by Rick Kwan, Mark Yoshizumi and Bob Mallory. Original music by John Estes. Amanda Moore is our production manager and Marissa Riley is the director of production. Liz Cole is president of NBC News Studios. Foreign.
- [76:37]
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